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The Arts Beat is a weekly deep-dive into Memphis arts, music, dance, theater, fashion, film and events. Keep scrolling for a roundup of the best arts and culture stories from the week. Have a story idea? Send it to eperry@dailymemphian.com.
When they come to the Stax Music Academy concert on Saturday, Overton Park Shell attendees will also see new art popping up on the venue’s grounds.
Legendary Mississippian bluesman Bobby Rush and more are slated to play the Overton Park Shell fall series, which begins Saturday, Aug. 23. Click here to read more about the series.
With funding from donors, the Shell has recently added the Jim Buchman Sculpture Walk. Located off Veterans Plaza Drive, nine cement sculptures comprise the art installation. Seven sculptures are currently installed, with two more to be put in place throughout the next week.
The installation is named for the sculptor, Memphian Jim Buchman. Buchman graduated from Dartmouth College in 1970 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
 In-progress installation of the Jim Buchman sculptures on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. (Elle Perry/The Daily Memphian)
Both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation have awarded Buchman grants. He has had solo exhibitions at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens and Tops Gallery in Memphis, as well as in New York.
To create the sculptures, Buchman poured cement mix into a form with different additives, allowing the mix to remain in a semi-solid state as he worked.
“And consequently, when I carve them with a high-speed wire brush, when I touch that surface, it liquifies immediately,” he said. “I just loved it. It liquifies, and it looks to me, in many ways, like a drip of a drip sandcastle. It’s the same process. It’s sand suspended in liquid form, and when the liquid drains out, you have this form related to flowing or melting.”
Buchman says that abstract art like his is to be interpreted by the viewer, but he sees the nine statues as female figures.
 The Jim Buchman Sculpture Walk will include nine statues. (Elle Perry/The Daily Memphian)
They play on the idea of the Greek Acropolis’ female figures that served as columns.
“And they are wearing drapery that is very lyrical to me, certainly to me and probably to most other people, just this beautiful drapery with the folds and only partially revealing the female shape underneath,” Buchman said. “That somehow became related to this drip stuff.”
Overton Park Shell Executive Director Natalie Wilson said that while the organization is not always able to accept visual art donations, the music venue is a place for “all art expression.”
“Being that we are in the art ecosystem of Overton Park with the Metal Museum and the Brooks (Museum of Art) and whatever happens to that space,” she said. “... We are the true arts district. ... We have an opportunity as an immersive space that can introduce different types of art at the Shell.”
Wilson noted that the Shell has an existing partnership with the UrbanArt Commission and the City of Memphis that enabled its guitar statue on the top of the hill.
That work by Christopher Fennell was installed in 2012.
Buchman’s works are also large.
“To me, when you come into the Shell, you wind through them and end on a place on the lawn,” Wilson said. “Eventually they will be uplit. ... It’s on the greenspace and beautiful. It’s a conversation piece.”
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